


He Lived

by BlaineyDevon



Series: Headway 'Verse [10]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Brain Damage, Headway, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3560495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlaineyDevon/pseuds/BlaineyDevon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Blaine's life could have easily died with Kurt, except that nothing of Blaine's ever truly died. Not when he was always so eager to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> So here we are with another Headway verse fic. I would consider this an epilogue. Please note the major character death warning. This fic is very Kurt heavy, as Kurt reflects back on the events of his life with Blaine and offers the wisdom that only someone of his age and experience could provide. I do hope you enjoy.

Kurt was seventy-nine years old when she came to him. He lived alone then, in the same apartment he had lived in for as long as he could remember. Everything was the same. The only place in the whole building that wasn’t renovated. He liked things the way they were. He rarely left the place, unable to get around as well as he had before. Going out only seemed to remind him of how alone he was.

The buzzer rang on a Tuesday. It took Kurt ten minutes to the door, and he fully expected the unexpected visitor to leave by then, but when he pressed the button and asked who was there, a sweet, kind voice replied.

“ _My name is Melissa Barnes and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about your husband? It’s for a project for school._ ”

 Kurt rolled his eyes, wondering how on earth some kid could get his address, then he remembered it had been public record ever since the foundation had started. He thought about it long and hard for a few moments, the released a long sigh.

Kurt rolled his eyes, wondering how on earth some kid could get his address, then he remembered it had been public record ever since the foundation had started. He thought about it long and hard for a few moments, the released a long sigh.

“Late husband,” he grumbled as he pressed the button to let her up.

There was a knock on the door five minutes later, and he was there to open it. Melissa was bright-eyed. She had brown hair as curly as Blaine’s had been, and a cheerful smile on her face. She was a tiny little thing, dressed in the pressed shirt and skirt that was her private school’s uniform. She clutched a tablet in her hands and looked entirely too eager to be there.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Anderson-Hummel,” she said, stepping in when Kurt motioned for her to. He closed the door behind her without a word and shuffled toward the living room slowly and tiredly. He was getting entirely too old.

“Why do you want to know about him?” Kurt asked.

“He’s my hero,” she stated. She didn’t even look old enough to have known him in her lifetime. After a moment of Kurt’s cold, judgmental gaze settled on her, she cleared her throat and added to it. “I mean, your foundation. His foundation. They saved my big brother’s life. He was hurt when I was just a baby, and the foundation gave us money for hospital bills. And when my parents died in an accident a few years ago, my big brother was there to raise me. If it weren’t for the foundation, I wouldn’t have anyone. It saved us both. And when I got old enough, I started looking for volunteer opportunities and I read about Blaine’s life. He was so inspiring.”

She was so sincere it was killing him, and Kurt knew he couldn’t refuse this girl after her heartfelt story and obviously true admiration for his late husband. After all, this girl was the very reason why Blaine had started the foundation to begin with, to help people like her.

“He was,” Kurt agreed at last. “He was the kindest, most beautiful man I had ever met. Now, granted, I didn’t know that when I met him. I thought I was doing him the favor, being his friend. But really it was him doing me the favor, by giving me his heart.”

The girl already seemed captured by his story, and he had barely begun. Kurt motioned to the tablet in her hands and blinked tiredly. He began to feel the energy in him already fading. It didn’t take much these days, he knew he was on his way out. Maybe it would be good to talk to her, answer her questions, while he still could.

“What questions have you got?” he asked. Melissa scrambled a little to get her tablet out and turned on, then she cleared her throat a little before asking.

“How did Blaine’s accident happen?”

Alright, so Kurt hadn’t been ready for that one right off the bat, but after he regrouped, he took a deep breath. He told her the details and how Blaine hit his head and how Cooper blamed himself and how Blaine’s aunt went to jail for ten years. For that, the girl interrupted to ask him why.

“Because she killed someone, that’s why,” Kurt snapped, irritated both by the interruption and having to think about that particular day of his own life. Melissa’s eyes widened, but she remained silent, so Kurt continued. “There was another car involved in that accident. My mother’s car.”

It wasn’t like it was impossible to find the public records of the trial and the accident, but it was seventy years ago, and no one remembered anymore except for Kurt.

“We were going home from a movie when our car was hit. I don’t remember much about the details, just that when I woke up my mom was just lying there…and I was crying to her. Some man came and pulled me from the car and carried me to an ambulance. The only gurney they had carried this boy. He was so small and his face was bloody and blue and for a terrifying moment I thought _this is what a dead person looks like._ They put me in the back of the ambulance and lifted the gurney in after me, and I watched them the whole ride to the hospital as they tried to save his life.”

Kurt shivered from the memory. That boy’s face. Blaine’s face. It was fresh in his mind as though it had just happened, even though it was a moment he hadn’t thought about for many decades.

“They did. Eventually. They did. And I saw him once more before I left the hospital, except then he was almost unrecognizable. I had nightmares about that accident for weeks after that. Dreaming about my dead mother and the boy I thought had died.”

Melissa looked stunned, her tablet capturing everything as he spoke, so that she didn’t have to bother writing anything down. She blinked back tears in her eyes, and there was a silence that passed between them for a few moments before she looked back to her questions.

“How long did it take for him to recover?” she asked, her voice tentative this time, as she prepared herself for Kurt to speak, guarding herself against her own emotions. Kurt knew her body language well, he had been that way once.

“Recover? Well, I suppose it depends on the definition. Fully recover, I don’t think he ever did. Until the day he died, his injuries lagged after him, weighing him down. His injury killed him, it just took a lifetime for it to happen.” Kurt’s eyes wandered from Melissa’s innocent young face to a picture of Blaine, flickering in the digital photo frame. He was smiling, so alive and so beautiful. Kurt’s heart ached in a way it hadn’t in a long time.

“I mean, when he got out of the hospital and stuff,” Melissa clarified, although she did not seem to miss the importance of Kurt’s words in the scheme of things.

“Oh, back then. Well, if you can believe it or not, all that was before I met him,” said Kurt, almost chuckling a little. “Seems like very little of his life happened before I met him, yet it was so much.”

“But everything I’ve read said you met when you were kids,” said Melissa, her brow furrowed. This time Kurt did laugh. Melissa frowned as she waited for it to die down.

“Because we were kids!” Kurt managed to croak before his laughter turned into a fit of coughing that filled him so completely that he was doubled over and wheezing, his face red and sweating as Melissa hovered over him, her hand on her back as she questioned if he was alright. It took him a few moments of gasping for air before he seemed to calm down enough to point to the kitchen. “ _Water._ ”

Melissa was gone in a flash, the sound of her polished black shoes a resonating _thud thud thud_ on the hardwood floor as she scurried off. She returned barely a minute later with a glass of water in her hand, and she sat beside him, bringing the water to his lips. Kurt scowled and grabbed the glass, batting her hands away. He wasn’t that feeble yet.

The girl watched as he took a sip of water, slowly soothing the ache in his throat. After a few more drinks, he handed her the glass again and sat back against the couch. She set it down on the coffee table and reached for her tablet again.

“You were kids,” she prompted, her eyes filled with concern but also eager to hear the story.

“Right,” said Kurt, clearing his throat. “We were kids. We were sixteen.” 

Melissa did not looked convinced, but Kurt put that to the fact that she probably wasn’t sixteen yet herself.

“We were kids,” Kurt repeated softly, smiling as his own eyes closed and filled with memories. “I still remember the first day I saw him. You know, besides the day of the accident. It wasn’t that day in the choir room, when he came in and sat at the piano. I always tell that story. That was the first day I _saw_ him, but I remember before that. It was the first day of school and he was just…there. In the back of the classroom trying to blend into the wall. And I thought…just another devastatingly handsome straight boy. I was wrong, of course. But kids are always so quick to make their judgments, as you know.”

 Kurt looked pointedly at Melissa, whose eyes had filled with understanding. There was a story there. Maybe Kurt would get it out of her later.

“Do you know anything about when he was in the hospital?” Melissa looked eager to get back to her questions. Kurt smirked a little. He would teach her a little patience someday, maybe.

“He was there for about five months, total. Eight weeks in a coma, then a month before he was functioning well enough to enter the rehabilitation unit,” Kurt said, just to answer her question.

She made a note on her tablet, then looked up at him, about to open her mouth to ask the next question, but he spoke before she could.

“What Blaine survived, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But that’s what he did. He survived. God only knows how.” Kurt shook his head a little and let his eyes drift away from the girl. “Not that I believe in God, mind you. Who does these days? But there was some higher power involved there. He had to have been gone, and something, some _one_ took his soul by the arm and turned it around and told him to go back. To hang on. To fight and survive.”

“And he did,” said Melissa, smiling with sparkling eyes.

 “No,” said Kurt. He shook his head and he sat up and he grabbed Melissa’s hand. His own cold, frail fingers held hers as tight as he could grip then, and she looked down at them in shock. He was trembling, they could both feel it.

“But, he…”

“No,” said Kurt again. “Blaine didn’t just survive. He came back to this world with wings and he soared through his lifetime. He didn’t just come back to survive. He found strength and courage and love in every crack and crevice of this world that he could dig his fingers into. He taught every single one of us who had been touched by his presence the importance of seizing each day and never taking a moment on this earth for granted. Blaine never just survived. He _lived_.”

The sparkling in Melissa’s eyes changed, and Kurt could see them damp with tears. He gripped her hand just a little harder and looked at her, really looked at her. There was something there. Something in her face that he couldn’t pin down. Something so familiar about her.

“There is so much about that man that no one ever knew,” Kurt rasped, his voice already giving out on him. It had been so long since he’d spoken so many words in one sitting. Melissa seemed captivated, waiting for him to go on despite the tear that had escaped her big eyes and trailed down her cheek. “So many secrets, so much that only I got to see. So many special moments that will just die with me.”

“They don’t have to,” said Melissa. She squeezed his hand back. Now she was trembling. “I will tell his story. That’s why I’m here. People should know about him.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Kurt managed. “Yes. People should.”

Suddenly another coughing fit wracked through him and he lost his grip on her hand. His body shook uncontrollably as the coughs grew louder and more painful. He almost felt like he was choking as his lungs burned and his face grew damp with sweat. Melissa was at his side again, concerned, but he waved her off. It would pass eventually.

And when they did, he was exhausted.

“I can come back tomorrow,” Melissa told him, packing away her tablet in the bag she had brought with her. “If that’s okay. I’ll come back. You can rest, we’ll take this slow. I’ve only got a few more questions anyway.”

“Yes, yes. Fine,” Kurt wheezed through a few more soft coughs. He waved her off, then let his tired hand fall to his aching chest.

Polished black shoes echoed again on the hardwood floor, all the way to the front door. The soft click of the door being closed behind her. Silence, and Kurt was alone again.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had made so many mistakes back then, handled things in ways he shouldn’t have, and taken for granted a life he should have known wouldn’t last forever.

The view from the living room window had always been beautiful. From it, there was a view right down Broadway. At night, with the curtains open, he could see the lights down there. If he tried really hard, he could see the signs with the giant posters for the various Broadway shows. His face used to be there, on the side of a building, lighting up for all the world to see. He had been so much younger then, so determined and ambitious.

Yet he had made so many mistakes back then, handled things in ways he shouldn’t have, and taken for granted a life he should have known wouldn’t last forever.

_Clang!_

He was jolted out of his reverie by the sound of pots and pans being knocked about in the kitchen, but he couldn’t be bothered to turn his head and look at the cause of the commotion.

“Sorry Granddad!” called a voice from across the apartment. Kurt smiled a little at the sound of it. A gentle reminder that he wasn’t completely alone anymore. At least not on Thursday afternoons.

Mackenzie was Allison’s younger daughter, the middle child of her three. She was eighteen and stunningly gorgeous, even though she looked absolutely nothing like her mother. She has been four years old when Blaine died, so she didn’t really remember him, but Kurt made sure she knew him. He made sure they all knew him.

After a while, she came out of the kitchen and went over to him, crouching down beside his chair. She smiled at him and gently put a hand on his shoulder.

“Everything okay?” she asked sweetly. She cleaned his apartment for him, once a week every week since he had injured his hip the year before. He both enjoyed and loathed the company.

“It’s fine,” he said, feeling a little grumpy that day. Mackenzie smiled anyway and leaned forward, kissing his cheek.

“I’ve got to go. B’s got soccer practice and I promised to pick him up,” Mackenzie said. Kurt did manage a little smile at that.

B, short for Blaine. But they never called him that around Kurt. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take it. He was overjoyed when Alli had named her son after her father, but some days. Some days Kurt just missed him.

“That’s fine, Kenz. Thanks for coming,” Kurt said, coughing a little at the end to punctuate it. Mackenzie looked at him sadly, and he hated that. It was like she knew something. She didn’t know anything.

His granddaughter gave him a quick hug and a whispered “I love you” and then she was gone, as she always was at the end of her visit. Two hours a week and then back to her life. But it was more than anyone else gave him.

When he was alone again in his solitude and the quiet, Kurt took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He turned his eyes back to the city before him, taking in everything he could see. But the peace and the silence didn’t last long. The door clicked open just minutes later, and at first Kurt didn’t hear it, until footsteps grew closer.

“Mr. Anderson-Hummel?” came the timid, sweet, not yet familiar voice.

Kurt jumped in his chair, a faster reaction than he’d had in years, and felt his heart straining under the extra adrenaline that pumped through him. He turned as much as he could to look behind him, seeing the young girl from the day before standing there.

“Jesus Christ, how did you get in here?” Kurt snapped, settled back in his chair, his hand over his chest as he tried to calm his racing heart.

“Oh, I’m sorry I scared you.” Melissa stepped closer, clutching her tablet. Her uniform was as pristine as it had been the day before, and her eyes were just as bright. “Mackenzie let me in. She knows me from the foundation. We volunteered together a few times at the hospital.”

Kurt gave out a grunt of acknowledgment. So much for his quiet time. Oh well. He could humor the girl for a while and then she’d go and he could take a good long nap. That sounded good.

“Is it okay if I ask a few more questions?” Melissa asked, her fingers fidgeting on the tablet as she stood above him.

“Yeah, yeah it’s fine,” said Kurt. He twisted a little in his chair and pointed toward another chair in the corner. “Drag that over here and sit. We can talk.”

Melissa smiled eagerly. She disappeared from Kurt’s side for the moment, and the scraping of the chair against the floor made him cringe. Then she was there, beside him, and he could feel her presence. Just the presence of another human being, not there because she felt like she was obligated, but there because she wanted to be. Because she wanted to know about Blaine.

“See this view?” asked Kurt, gesturing to the window.

“It’s gorgeous. The city is beautiful on days like today,” commented Melissa, smiling as she leaned toward the window and looked out it.

“Blaine loved it. This spot. He loved it so much. We picked this apartment out when Alli was little. We realized we needed a bigger place if we were going to raise a child. We shopped for apartments for months, and I hated this place at first. It was too awkward and the closet wasn’t big enough. I was about to say no to it when I came out of the bedroom and spotted him. He was standing right here, with his nose pressed against the glass as he looked out. I came up behind him and put my arms around him and asked him what he was looking at, and he pointed to the glass.” Kurt paused for a moment, smiling to himself. He sat up the best that he could, leaning close to the glass and pressing his finger to it, pointing to the right. “He said ‘look there, Kurt. Look there’. So I did, and there I was. My face, taking up half the side of a building. You can see Broadway from here, and I was doing a big show back then. Blaine wanted this place so bad, just so that he could see that, because he was so proud of me. The ‘no’ that had been building up inside of me the whole tour of the place just…vanished. And a week later we moved in.”

“That’s so sweet,” said Melissa. “He must have loved you so much.”

“Yeah,” Kurt nodded. He closed his eyes and just for a moment he could remember the feel of Blaine’s waist under his hand as he leaned closer to catch a look at what Blaine had seen out the window. He remember the scent of Blaine’s skin and the warmth of him, and it made him shiver. “He must have loved me.”

“Was it love at first sight? Did you know right away that he was ‘the one’?” she asked.

Without opening his eyes, Kurt imagined she had that look that teenage girls always got when they were enthralled with a love story. Which was exactly what he and Blaine were, a love story.

“Yes, I suppose I did. My heart did. It just took my brain awhile to catch up. I had to realize that being with him was worth it, even though it meant being…being more. Blaine required so much. Commitment meant more than just agreeing to be monogamous. With Blaine, it was agreeing to play so many different roles, and to not ever let any of those roles get mixed up. I was his boyfriend, lover, caretaker, his source of comfort, and occasionally the bad guy, sometimes all in the same day.”

“What do you mean, ‘bad guy’?”

“There were rules we had to follow. Dietary rules, lifestyle rules. Things to keep him healthy. All I ever wanted was for him to live as long as he could, and he knew that. But Veronica, she was Santana’s wife, you’d know Santana she’s always at the foundation office. Anyway, Veronica worked at this bakery, and we’d pass by it and he would smell the cronuts. It’s been years since I’ve had one. I don’t even know if they make them anymore, but they were delicious. They’re like a mix between a croissant and a donut. Anyway. His absolute favorite. I always had to tell him no, because too many times I didn’t and he started to get this little belly. It was hard to monitor his eating habits when I wasn’t there, but I tried.”

Kurt relaxed a little in his chair as he spoke.

“I yelled at Rachel for feeding him too many cronuts, but fuck if I wasn’t just as guilty as she was. I couldn’t resist that face of his. Those big eyes, begging me. ‘Please Kurt please just one please’. Who was I to deny him something simple like that when the world had already dealt him a shit hand?”

“The accident wasn’t your fault. Nothing that happened to him was. You didn’t even know him, then. You couldn’t have blamed yourself,” said Melissa. Hesitantly, she reached over and laid her small hand over his.

“I never blamed myself for the brain damage, only for the way I treated him in the beginning. It took me so long to understand him. Years. Several years. And even then, I was never perfect. But when I was in college, we lived with Rachel and Santana, and the three of us took turns taking care of him. About two years into it, I let myself get busy. Too busy. I was gone more hours than I was home, and when I was there, I wasn’t really there. I was just…this shell of a body, letting Blaine do whatever he had to do to get out his frustration or cling to when he was sad. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there, I did. I always did. It was…that was the first time, I think. The first time I thought, how small his world must be compared to mine. There I was, in college, on my way to Broadway, working a real job, singing in a band, making so many friends. And I came home to him. Sweet, simple Blaine, whose entire world was inside the four walls of our loft, with all the comforts and friends he would ever need right there. Except, his world wasn’t small at all. Because _I_ was his world, and to him I was larger than life.”

“He just really loved you, then,” said Melissa, smiling a little.

“Of course he loved me, haven’t you been listening? He would have gone through anything for me, just to wait for me to figure out how to love him. There wasn’t anyone on this planet he was even interested in looking at besides me!” Kurt raised his voice, which he realized soon after was a big mistake. He started to cough and sputter, which turned into those big coughs that wracked through his whole body.

Feeling helpless, Melissa reached over to pat him on the back, but it only served to make his coughs worse. She quickly pulled back and stood, rushing to the kitchen. Coming back moments later, she pressed a glass into his hand as his coughs began to die down. He sipped gently until the burn in his throat was soothed.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, settling back in his chair, exhausted.

“Do you think, maybe, I could ask you another question about him? For my project?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, go for it,” Kurt grumbled, wiping at his clammy forehead.

“When he got out of the hospital, what was his school situation like?”

“God,” Kurt said. He shook his head.

“God,” he said again. As far from religious as a man could get, Kurt was. But still.

“His school situation. Well. Before the accident, he was some kind of child prodigy. He was getting ready to skip ahead in school, a real genius I guess. Then after the accident, they figured that if his intellectual capacity was reduced, then he’s probably just as smart as the other kids his age now. Which was a lie. You listen here, missy. You don’t ever let someone tell you your child is one way when you know he’s another. His parents tried everything, but the school would not help him. Eventually, they finally got him into special education, but it was too late then. He was already so far behind everyone else his age, there was no hope of him catching up. And by then, no one cared. School attendance was a formality for the district, a botched attempt at socialization for his parents, and literal hell for Blaine. By the time I met him, he had just about given up. He wanted to be smart for me. That’s what he always said. That’s another thing. Don’t ever let someone try to change themselves for you when you love them just the same how they already are.”

Kurt felt exhausted by the time he was done talking, and his breathing was a little labored as he just sat there.

“Thank you,” said Melissa, after a few moments of silence. She looked down at the tablet in her lap, a little smile on her lips. “I’ve got a few more, but you seem like you need to rest. Can I come back tomorrow?”

“What? Yeah. Sure,” Kurt waved a hand at her, but he didn’t really even hear what she had said.

Melissa stood and thanked him one more time, and she left.

This time, when she was gone, he really was alone. And he stayed alone.

……………………….

He dreamt of Blaine that night. And again when he took his late morning nap in his chair by the window. Those eyes and that smile, his soft hands on Kurt’s skin, making love early on a hot summer morning, helping Blaine into the bathtub after a long day and gently washing his body, sweet kisses as they walked through the park holding hands, the determination Blaine had to make a difference in the world, and finally the most painful image of them all. Blaine’s face, lined from age with hair streaked gray, pale and lifeless, as Kurt saw him for the last time.

Waking up from his nap with tears streaming down his face was not what Kurt had in mind for ways to enjoy his day. Sometimes he hated that image that was burned into his mind. He hated that his last memory of Blaine was of him dead.

Sure, Kurt had managed happiness in the years since Blaine had left him, but only in those brief moments where something distract him from what he had lost. Now, as he sat in his chair, the sickness of old age sweeping through his tired body, he wished for something to remind him what happiness was truly like before the memory of it was gone too.

He was on his way back to his chair from the bathroom when there was a knock on the door. Grumbling, Kurt shuffled his way over to it, holding the cane he used with a tight grip. When he got there, the door swished open to reveal that girl that would not leave him alone. He rolled his eyes, but he had promised her she could come back.

“Hello Mr. Anderson-Hummel,” Melissa smiled brightly.

In her hands today she held a box instead of her tablet. She held the box up to him.

“I brought you something, to thank you. I must have went to a dozen places before I found it.” Melissa looked so damn proud of herself that Kurt sighed and took the box.

He lifted the lid carefully and looked inside, and god damn it if he didn’t smile for the first time in years.

Inside was one fresh, chocolate covered cronut.


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When we were young, it was just him and me against the world."

They sat beside each other at the kitchen island, where Kurt hadn’t sat in years. Each with a fork in hand, they took turns biting into the fresh pastry. The cronut tasted as good as Kurt remembered, maybe even better. With each bite, he could hear Blaine in the back of his mind telling how delicious it was.

When it was half gone, Kurt told Melissa to go to his bedroom and look in his nightstand drawer and pull out the old tablet he only used for checking the news before bed and looking at pictures of his family. Melissa leapt off the stool and hurried into the other room, coming back moments later with the device in her hand.

“I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid. The latest models have way better 3D resolution and twice as much storage space,” Melissa quipped as she set the tablet on the counter. Kurt rolled his eyes.

“You know, I thought my generation was bad about being reliant on technology, but you kids wouldn’t know how to breathe if you didn’t have a tablet in your hand,” Kurt grumbled. He slid the device over to him. “Besides, I’m not planning on replacing it. It was Blaine’s.”

He and Blaine had identical tablets ever since the devices had come out decades ago. They were miracle devices, practically managing the owner’s entire life without the owner having to even think about it. More sophisticated than the most sophisticated device Kurt could have imagined at Melissa’s age.

His own had broken five years before when he dropped it on accident, and when he was shopping for a new one and found himself wondering what Blaine’s opinion on the new style was, he didn’t bother buying a new one at all. He simply returned home and pulled out Blaine’s old tablet from storage. He dusted it off, backed up all of Blaine’s files, and re-registered it with his own identification number. The back was engraved with Blaine’s initials on it, and when he held it, he always made sure one finger was touching those letters.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Melissa apologized softly. Kurt couldn’t help the little side glare that he gave her as he turned on the tablet and brought up a file of old photos and videos.

He had everything with Blaine in one file. It was a sacred file to him, backed up a hundred times like it was the only way to hold onto his love.

Going back years and years, he pulled up a video of Blaine. It was from his thirtieth birthday, when instead of cake Blaine had just requested a platter of cronuts piled high with a big “30” shaped candle on the top. Said platter was on the table, stacked higher than Blaine’s head with cronuts, and Blaine was standing beside it looking up. With a smile, Kurt pressed play.

“ _What are you doing Blainey?” Kurt asked, stepping closer with the camera. Blaine stared wide-eyed at the platter in awe._

_“So many cronuts…” Blaine put a hand over his tummy and looked like he was going to start salivating any moment._

_“Are you going to eat them all or save some for your guests?” Kurt got closer, until he was just a foot away from Blaine._

_“No,” said Blaine._

_“No, you’re not gonna save some?” Kurt laughed when Blaine shook his head and pouted at Kurt’s laughter._

_“No, I, I just wonder. How you gonna light the candle? How_ I _gonna blow it out?” Blaine pointed up._

_“You want to stand on a chair?” offered Kurt. Blaine looked at him with those big eyes._

_“You won’t let me fall?”_

_“Of course not, honey. We’ll both do it.”_

_There was some rustling as Kurt pushed two chairs around to the side of the table, then he got the camera set up again as he climbed up on one chair and held out a hand for Blaine. Blaine stepped up hesitantly, and at last was taller than his birthday dessert. The smile on his face was bright and beautiful_.

And then the video cut to an end just like that.

Kurt stared at the screen for a moment before looking up at Melissa. She had a smile on her face, a happy smile poised to laugh.

“I didn’t know he was so…” She trailed off and made a gesture toward the tablet.

Kurt frowned and instantly his eyes narrowed angrily. He grabbed the device and pulled it toward him protectively.

“He’s so _what_?” he spat, expecting her to say something negative and judgmental. Melissa leaned way from him, her eyes widening a little bit, almost out of fear.

“I was just going to say I didn’t know he was so innocent and adorable,” she said, her voice almost coming out as a squeak.

His shoulders relaxed and Kurt let out a sigh. The tablet screen had gone black, yet his finger traced over where Blaine’s face had been during the video, as though somehow he could reach into the device and touch Blaine’s face for real.

“Yes. That he was,” Kurt agreed softly. “I’m sorry. Blaine…he wanted to always assume the best in people, but it was hard. People are. They’re quick to say things, without thinking. When we were young, it was just him and me against the world. It wasn’t until we got older, and he got better, that we realized we had to just let it roll off our backs. But Jesus. The things they would _say_.”

Kurt felt his face screw up as he felt an actual, physical ache in his body. Not from old age, but from anger toward all the whispered voices not-so-quietly judging Blaine when he slipped up or had an episode in public.

Melissa was silent, but the look on her face spoke volumes. Her eyes were wide, tender and glistening with tears, her jaw trembling and her lips parted as she breathed out through her mouth. Like she could imagine what they said, because she had heard it all before, from her own experience.

“What did they say?” she whispered after a few tense, silent seconds. Maybe she didn’t really want to go there, Kurt certainly didn’t, but for what they were doing, what they had been talking about, it felt important. Like it had to be said. It had to be talked about, because it had happened. It was real.

“Six weeks. We had been living in the city for six weeks when he broke the first time. I was loving my new life, of course, and Blaine was putting on a brave face for the world. The world, of course, being me. The truth of it was that he wasn’t adjusting well at all, not really. You have to remember, Blaine and I grew up in Lima, Ohio. A town not exactly known for being highly populated. There were more people on the sidewalks on our block in half a minute than Blaine could see in a whole day in Ohio. I think he would lose himself in it all, such a small person in such a big place.

“It happened in a grocery store. Not the market he worked at later on, but a big one about three blocks away. It was the most crowded time of the day, which was the biggest mistake I could have ever made. But it was the only time I had, so I took him with me to get him out of the house. He was terrified to go out because just two weeks before he’d gone out by himself and gotten lost. We went anyway, though, and he held my hand so tight that I thought he would break it. All through the store he did that, and of course I thought it was lovely. I had no idea he was panicking on the inside.

“I forgot something and I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, so I asked Blaine to wait for me at the end of an aisle by our cart. It turns out what I wanted was all the way at the other end of the store, but I didn’t even make it that far. There was one of those announcements over the intercom that said ‘security to aisle whatever it was’. I knew it was Blaine, so I ran back and there were these two guys in uniforms trying to grab him, and he was just…screaming at them. Just shouting and throwing things and crying and hiding behind this display case. I don’t even know what set him off, he just exploded.

“I got to him and took his hand and he just about punched me in the face, until he realized who it was. He collapsed into my arms, sobbing, and I managed to get him out. But by then this crowd had gathered, and this woman was speaking to the security guards. She called him crazy and said she wouldn’t be coming back if they continued letting people like him enter their store. And then she looked over at us and rolled her eyes because of _course_ he’s a _fag_ too.

“In the end, she ended up getting banned from the store for her offensive language and I had to spend two months of our grocery budget paying for all the things that Blaine destroyed. But neither of those things were the worst. The worst thing, had to be when we were leaving the store. This little kid, a little boy maybe six or seven years old, pointed at us and said ‘look mommy, there’s the man that was yelling’ and the mother looked at us, her eyes filled with pity, and said, ‘don’t point at him, it’s obvious he’s a very sick man’. For some reason, more than anything, that’s what made me the angriest.”

Kurt felt his face flushed with emotion as his hands clenched into fists. He remember that woman, and all the others who had looked at Blaine like he was somehow less than them because of what had happened to him.

“My brother used to have people call him bad things behind his back too,” said Melissa. She sniffled and Kurt looked up in time to see her wipe a tear from her cheek. “They have no right to say things like that when they don’t know how hard it actually is when someone is suffering from a brain injury.”

“I know, I know,” said Kurt, shaking his head. “He got that a lot back then, in the early days. Eventually he got better and stopped slipping up so much, and we learned. But it was hard. When people said things like that, it was hard.”

“When did he start to get better?” asked Melissa.

“Well, when he was around twenty-five, things started to look up. Then we got married, and he was better, and he got his GED, and then we had Alli. He improved a lot then. All those mental challenges helped him to grow,” said Kurt. He sighed again, for the millionth time in his lifetime, and felt exhaustion deep in his bones.

“He grew a lot, and he became a great man,” said Melissa. She said it as though she knew Blaine, and maybe on some level she did. Without all that Blaine had accomplished, she probably wouldn’t be sitting there in her fancy private school uniform looking at Kurt like he must have done something right in the universe to be the one to hold all the wisdom that had accumulated with Blaine.

“He was the best man. The kindest man. And for some reason, he’s gone. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. Why was I the one to live while he died? He had so much left to give the world,” said Kurt.

Absentmindedly, his fingers had turned on the tablet and found a picture of him and Blaine, sitting together in Santana’s then apartment and gazing at each other lovingly. They were around forty then, both with more lines around their eyes than they would have liked, and more gray in their hairs than either cared to admit, but still with smiles on their faces like nothing else mattered in the world.

Kurt had a lot of people in his life who loved him, but he never mattered to anyone the way he mattered to Blaine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapters, I know. But they're kind of heavy, so I don't want to load you guys on with a bunch of sad at once. Thanks for reading, and thanks for all your lovely comments.


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Blaine loved babies. I think he loved their innocence, and that they had the same wonder of the world that he did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't well edited, I apologize. I hope you still enjoy it. I'll fix it up before I post the next part.

Three days passed and Kurt began to wonder if the girl was coming back. He had gotten used to her coming every day, and he found that he missed her presence. She was a sprinkle of cheer in his otherwise unsatisfying old age. Of course, the first day missed had been his fault. His grandson had a soccer game and it was so close Kurt really had no excuse not to go. He’d left a note at the front of the building for her in case she came.

The second and third day, she just didn’t show up. Kurt wondered if maybe she had taken his absence the first day to mean that she was no longer welcome, but that was the opposite. He loved his grandkids, and he loved spending time with them. But Melissa visited him regularly, and he looked forward to those visits.

At least he had before she stopped coming.

Of course she stopped coming. Who was Kurt to assume that the girl wanted to be a part of his life? She had come to him with an interest in Blaine, and teenagers had passing interests. He couldn’t help feeling a little angry at the thought of Blaine being a passing interest for anybody. He deserved better than that. He deserved to be engrained in the memories of everyone for the rest of eternity so that he could continue to live on.

Kurt sighed as he shook his head and sunk further into his chair. This chair was in the bedroom he had once shared with Blaine. It had been Blaine’s chair that he sat in to work while he waited for Kurt to come out of the shower before bed. Blaine always like that the window was right beside it, and in the summer he could catch the last peaks of the sun lighting up the sky before it grew dark and the lights of the city took over.

He wished some of Blaine’s eternal optimism could be absorbed through the chair, but it had been too long since it had hosted Blaine’s behind. Like most things Kurt had once shared with his late husband, it seemed that Blaine’s essence had faded. It had faded from even Kurt himself, even though he tried so hard to hold on, and left behind the bitter empty man that he had become.

There was a knock on the door, pulling Kurt out of his dazed thoughts. He sighed and pulled himself up slowly. Fumbling for his cane, he began to walk from the bedroom down the hall. A photo on the wall, one of the few paper photos left from his wedding day, was crooked and he paused to fix it. Eventually he made it to the door, figuring whoever was there would have been gone by that time.

He opened the door, though, and there stood Melissa. She was smiling brightly and clutching her tablet, just like the day he had first met her almost a week and a half ago. Her cheeks were flushed red and her smiled faded a little as she drew her bottom lip between her teeth.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Anderson-Hummel,” she said earnestly. “I know I said I’d come, but my brother’s girlfriend had her baby a couple days ago, and I got kind of caught up in the excitement.”

Kurt could feel the grouchy expression on his face falling as he stepped aside to let her in.

“Boy or girl?” he asked curiously. He always did have a soft spot for babies, even when they weren’t his own. Something about a tiny human depending on adults for its survival was a weakness of his.

“Girl. They named her Penelope. She’s adorable,” Melissa said with a grin. She pulled up a picture on her tablet to show him.

The little scrunched up face, beautiful in that newborn-ugly kind of way. Teeny tiny wrinkled little hands. Bald and red and plump and expressionless. Yet still perfect in the way that only a new life could be. Kurt couldn’t help but smile.

He handed the tablet back to her and began to walk down the hall, back to his bedroom. Melissa followed him slowly, calmly.

“Did you ever have a baby? I mean. That was stupid. Everyone knows you have a daughter. But did you adopt her? Or was she yours?” asked Melissa.

Kurt didn’t answer right away. He paused at his nightstand and pulled out his tablet, then worked his way back over to Blaine’s chair. When he was sitting, he took a moment to close his eyes.

“This was Blaine’s chair,” he said softly. Melissa sat on the floor, at his feet. He sensed her there. “Sometimes when I sit here, I remember what it was like to feel him pressed against me from behind. The contact…I miss it. He was always touching me. Sometimes when I sit here I can remember what his arms felt like around my waist.”

He opened his eyes and looked down at the tablet in his lap, tapping a few files to get to the one he wanted.

“Allison is Blaine’s, biologically. Blaine’s and Santana’s. But when she was born it was Blaine and me who sighed the birth certificate. Santana had Abby, before that. And Blaine loved that little girl, but she wasn’t his. He wanted his own baby, one he could raise with me, so we could have a family together. He always thought we both contributed, that there was an equal shot at our baby being either mine or his. I tricked him, though. She was always going to be his, but he deserved it.

“He never found out I tricked him, which was probably a good thing. I wanted him to see that just because he had brain damage, just because he was a little slow, that didn’t mean that his daughter couldn’t be everything he wasn’t. He knew that she was his, I mean, it was obvious. The curly hair, the big puppy eyes, she looked exactly like him. And she was always so smart, the whole time she was growing up she was the top of her class. Blaine was always so _proud_.”

Kurt brought up a picture of Alli and Blaine at their high school graduation, both of them wearing caps and gowns and holding diploma covers. He showed it to Melissa.

“Honorary graduation?” she asked, leaning closer to look.

“They gave him a diploma because he deserved it. He’d worked his whole life to prove he was smart enough. He earned it.” Kurt pulled the tablet back. Somewhere in the closet was the diploma, packed away in a box filled with Blaine’s things.

“That’s wonderful,” said Melissa.

Kurt hummed a grunt of acknowledgement and kept scrolling through the pictures. He went back years and years until he found was he was looking for. Pictures from the day Alli was born. The very first picture he ever took of their daughter was more of Blaine than of her.

His heart ached in his chest, throbbing his whole body and making his lungs ache. He choked down the coughs that threatened to come up and traced his fingers over the sweet image of Blaine’s still young face. He was grinning so wide as he looked down at the bundle in his arms, the smile reaching all the way up to the crinkles in the corners of his eyes. His skin was golden from the summer sun and his hair a little longer and curlier than he usually kept it. Kurt remembered how stressful that time had been for both of them, getting everything ready for their baby girl to become part of their family.

And Alli, in Blaine’s arms, was a sweet little angel who looked like a clone of the man that held her.

Kurt let out another sigh, this time one filled with longing. When he closed his eyes he was transported back to that time, and he could almost, _almost_ hear Blaine’s voice.

_“She’s so beautiful Kurt, look at her. Look. Little fingers, they’re so tiny. And, and little toes. She’s the tiniest thing I ever seen_.”

Nothing could have ever been more beautiful than the sight of Blaine’s eyes filled with wonder and awe at the sight of his own daughter in his arms.

“Blaine loved babies,” Kurt found himself saying, his voice a harsh rasp of emotion. “I think he loved their innocence, and that they had the same wonder of the world that he did. Teenagers and adults were always hard for him, because he felt like he was always a step below them. But with babies, he could care for them and feel, somehow, bigger than he was, if that makes sense.”

Melissa nodded.

“The first baby he ever cared for was Santana’s daughter Abby. He was in love when he saw that little girl. He wanted to have a part in everything, from feeding her to bathing her to changing her diapers. I’ll never forget the first time he changed a diaper. He’d watched Santana do it a few times that day, and he was sure he’d be able to do it himself. He managed, but oh his face when he caught a whiff of that smell. I don’t think he realized that babies poop and that it stinks. He gagged on the smell, and he looked at me with this look like, please Kurt do this for me. But I wouldn’t. He wanted to try it, so he had to finish. It was all he could do to go through with it, but after a few fumbling minutes I think he figured it out. A few times later, he was a pro at it. We called him the diaper changing king. He could do it in less time than either Santana or Veronica could. I think it had to do with the repetitive motions. He was good at figuring things out like that.”

Kurt flipped ahead a few pictures on the tablet, until he found one that made him pause. He stared at it, his hand shaking as he gripped the device. For a moment he forgot to breathe, his breath actually taken away by the beauty of the man he had spent his life with.

Blaine was lying on the couch in their then living room, on his back with one arm curled above his head and the other tucked along the edge of the couch, holding the sleeping baby that was half tucked into his side and half draped over his arm. Blaine’s body looked long laying the way it was. His trim waist and hips drew Kurt’s eyes and made him feel the phantom ache of need. Old age and death had not seemed to be very affective in stopping Kurt from desiring Blaine.

He showed the tablet to Melissa, letting her see the picture. He could see her eyes, the way they traced over all aspects of the photo, from the baby in Blaine’s arm to the curves and lines of Blaine’s open body.

“You can say it. He’s gorgeous,” said Kurt.

Melissa blushed and handed the tablet back.

“I’ve never shown that photo to anyone,” he admitted softly. The tremble in his fingers seemed to settled as he traced along Blaine’s waist in the photo.

“I can see why,” said the girl. “It’s very private. He probably never wanted anyone else to see him like that.”

“He was the most beautiful like that. Open and vulnerable and just…there. He got more like that when we had Alli. She would suck out all his energy. He never had much stamina to begin with, but having a baby around 24/7 exhausted him. So I would find them napping together all over the apartment. On the couch like that, in a chair, on the floor, on our bed. It was always the best thing to come home to.”

Kurt smiled at all the memories coming back to him. Blaine had been so much better at taking care of Alli as a baby than he had, which he had always been a little thankful for. He loved babies as much as anybody, especially his own, but he was so much better when she was older.

“Did you relationship change at all after you brought a baby into it?” asked Melissa.

“Yes,” said Kurt. He had to think to elaborate, but he finally did speak. “We grew stronger, in a way. I always loved him and he always loved me, but somehow having a baby brought us together even more, and we became more than just us. We were a family, finally, and I think it changed the way Blaine looked at me. He was just so thankful for everything we had, because there was a time when he thought he would never get to have anything we had together. From the outside we just seemed like a normal couple, but what we had was more than just companionship between two people. We gave each other life. And having Alli brought us closer, because there was another life growing with us.”

Kurt clutched the tablet, Blaine’s tablet, closer as he spoke. As though holding on to all the feelings the pictures helped him to remember 

“If you ever get the chance,” he looked at Melissa, right at her, making sure she was listening and understanding. “If you _ever_ get the chance to have that with someone, do not let it pass you by. Without Blaine, I wouldn’t have been half the man I was when I was with him. I wouldn’t have accomplished half as much in my life without him. I don’t know if you’ll ever know exactly what Blaine and I had, because that was something special and unique. But if you ever find something that comes close, don’t let it slip by. Seize it, and put everything into it, because you’ll get so much in return.”

Not for the first time, there were tears in his eyes and hers.


	5. Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melissa followed him cautiously, aware that he was lost in nearly eighty years’ worth of memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of some character death in the past. I mean, beyond the obvious.

“When’s the last time you got out of this apartment?” asked Melissa one day. She was helping him cut the seams apart on a bunch of his old clothes so that he could reuse the fabric to make new ones. He’d taken up the hobby a few years ago, when he’d become less fond of shopping but still maintained his love of fashion.

“Last week, I guess. I needed milk,” Kurt replied from where he was hunched over his sewing machine. He was making a dress for Allison out of some shirts that hadn’t fit him for several years. “I usually get my groceries delivered, but they forgot milk.”

“You need to get out more. You need to see the sun, feel some fresh air on your skin! It’s a beautiful day outside.” Melissa set aside what she was doing and stood up, almost dancing over to the window. It didn’t open, since they were so high up, but she could see out it. Kurt looked up to see her nearly pressing her entire face against the glass.

He rolled his eyes.

“I’m fine where I am. I’m an old man. There’s nothing fresh air can do to help me,” he said. He hunched over the sewing machine, squinting through his glasses to see the seams he was sewing. Most people he knew his age opted to get some kind of eye enhancement surgery, but he was content to just let his body age. The sooner he died the sooner he could be with Blaine again.

“You know that’s crap as much as I do,” said Melissa disapprovingly.

“Excuse me, young lady?” He paused in his sewing to look up at her, judgmental eyebrow raised.

“I’m just saying, everyone needs to get out once in a while. Blaine couldn’t have wanted you to spend the rest of your life cooped up inside this apartment.” As soon as she said it, she knew it was a mistake.

Kurt felt anger rising inside him and he pushed himself to his feet faster than he had in many years.

“Don’t you dare presume to know what Blaine would have wanted for me,” he snapped. He pointed towards the door. “Get out.”

Melissa didn’t budge. She glanced at his finger, almost fearfully, but she stood her ground.

“Mr. Anderson-Hummel. Kurt. You spend hours every day looking out that window to see the view, but don’t you want to see it in person? You still can. You don’t have to be isolated just because you’re sitting in here waiting to die.” Melissa crossed her arms in front of her and cocked her hip a little, and suddenly Kurt was reminded entirely too much of himself at that age.

He dropped his hand and sighed.

The girl had a point.

“Alright, alright,” he conceded. He hated it, really, that she was right. Blaine would have hated what he was doing to himself. He would have hated to see Kurt wasting away without at least enjoying a little of what the world had to offer.

He sat back in his chair. He needed a moment to think.

“Come,” said Kurt. He gestured to the chair Melissa had been sitting in. “Sit.”

As though knowing that a story was coming, Melissa sat. She no longer reached for her tablet the moment she sensed Kurt was going to speak. Their relationship, now going on two weeks, had become stronger than that. Sometimes she got to hear about Blaine, sometimes she got to ask questions, and sometimes she was simply there to keep Kurt company.

“I told you about how when we were younger, Blaine was pretty much confined to indoors unless he had an attentive chaperone,” said Kurt. Melissa nodded. “I guess I just…am punishing myself, somehow. No. Not punishing, that’s not the word. I’m forcing myself to see what that was like for him. Not intentionally. I could go outside any time I want. I just feel like…why should I have more freedom than Blaine ever had. Especially now that he’s…where he’s at.”

“That’s silly,” said Melissa. She wasn’t afraid to tell him that much, because it was.

“I know that,” Kurt nearly snapped. “I know a lot of the things I think are silly. Blaine never failed to tell me that.”

He could hear Blaine’s voice so clear it was like he was standing right, and it gave him chills.

 _“Why you think that, Kurt? That’s silly!_ ”

He visibly shuddered, then quickly tried to change their discussion.

“Alright. You know what? Let’s go out.” Kurt pushed himself to his feet again and grabbed for his cane.

Melissa stood up eagerly and followed him as he slowly made his way out of the room and down the hall. He reached the hall closet and took a moment to pick out a light jacket to wear, then he slipped on some shoes and looked at the girl, who eagerly waited for him to get ready.

He wanted to smile, but he didn’t. He just turned for the door and opened it. Melissa closed it behind him, and they headed to the elevator. It wasn’t until they were in the lobby and heading for the street that Melissa finally dared to ask him where they were going.

“The park,” was all that Kurt told her. He managed to hail a cab and he got in. She quickly followed.

It was a short ride, winding through the New York streets until they got to a neighborhood that Kurt hadn’t been to in a very, very long time.

Nothing much had changed about the street that he had lived on when he first came to New York with Blaine. He got out of the cab and paid the driver, then looked up at the building in front of him. It was the building where on the fourth floor was the loft he had once lived in. The building was vacant and under renovations now, but Kurt decided what better time than now to see if the loft was still anything resembling what he remembered.

“Blaine and I lived here,” explained Kurt as he headed inside. He found the elevator to be functional. Melissa was a little scared when he joked about it being the very same elevator from all those years ago. Well. He wasn’t _really_ joking. It actually may have been that elevator.

They got to the fourth floor to find that it was dusty and damp and dark. It had been untouched by the renovations that were claimed to be going on in the building. Kurt walked down the hallway slowly, feeling his aging heart begin to liven in his chest as they got closer to the end of the hall, where the door to the loft was.

The big rolling door was closed, which kind of surprised Kurt. He hoped there weren’t crazy homeless people squatting there. This has been his home once, the place had shared with Blaine.

Melissa rolled open the door for him, and the space was completely empty, and almost exactly as Kurt had remembered. Except with a whole lot more dust.

One of the windows was broken in, the kitchen was gone and one of the two walls they’d added was gone. The rails for the curtains were still on the ceiling, but the curtains were gone. There was a pile of beer cans in one corner, the corner that used to be Blaine’s work space. Kurt had the urge to go clean it, but he didn’t bother.

“Right there was where our bedroom was,” he pointed to one area of the loft before heading over there slowly. “We didn’t have much privacy here when we had roommates, but Blaine liked that our space was ours. Of course you know Santana, she lived here too, over there. And Rachel. She passed away a few years ago. Cancer wouldn’t let her go. Her room was just there. She had the worst time of it. Closest to all of our action. She got us back plenty of times, though.”

Kurt broke off with a little chuckle, and he could tell without even looking that Melissa was blushing. He remembered those days fondly, and then how happy he had been when they were free of the constraints of roommates. Yet somehow his heart still yearned for those days, when his life was full of action and people.

It had been several years since Rachel died. All the modern medicine in the world hadn’t been able to save her, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Kurt and Jesse and Finn had all sat by her side in that hospital room, listening to the sound of her breath as it slowed until finally there was none at all.

Kurt had been immune to the sadness of death at that point. At least, that’s what he told himself when he couldn’t even cry at her funeral. That had been the start of his loneliness.

After Rachel, it had been Veronica to go next. Shortly after her funeral, Santana had approached him and told him simply, “Now I know the pain you’ve felt all this time.”

And then she stopped talking to him too.

Pretty soon, all of the people in Kurt’s life who had tried so hard to get him to be a part of their lives after Blaine had died just stopped trying. They pushed, and Kurt pushed back twice as hard. And then Kurt was alone.

He took a deep breath, which filled his lungs with dusty, prickling air. His lungs protested, and he coughed long and hard and not even Melissa’s comforting pats on the back and offering of a bottle of water could bring him out of it.

Eventually his shoulders stopped shaking and he managed to calm himself. He felt weak then, but he was determined not to stop. He kept going, walking slowly as he headed across the loft. Melissa followed him cautiously, aware that he was lost in nearly eighty years’ worth of memories and content to quietly wait for him to divulge what he was thinking.

Kurt kept walking slowly until he made it to the corner bathroom, which was still just that. He peaked his head in and he couldn’t help smiling. It was exactly as he remembered it, same fixtures and everything. He stepped inside, walking over to the bathtub. It was cracked and chipping and nearly crumbling apart as he touched it, but the way he saw it, it was brand new and filled with Blaine.

“Blaine preferred baths. Showers were too loud for him. The noise around his head hurt him, so he took baths. Every night before bed, like a ritual. God knows we spent a fortune on water bills back in the day, but he needed it.” Kurt turned away from the tub and the memories of all the years he’d sat by Blaine’s side reading school books or Vogue, waiting for Blaine to be done.

It had seemed like a burden then, but now he longed for it.

“This must have been a great place to live. Back then, I mean. Especially considering how much you loved Blaine. You wouldn’t have let him live anywhere that wasn’t nice,” Melissa commented, just for the sake of commenting.

Kurt nodded. He was tired of this place, now. Too many memories. He had seen it, what it had become. The loft was just as old and dusty as he was. It was time to move on.

………………………

They left the building and walked down the street. The market Blaine had worked at was now an antique store, selling clothes and furniture that Kurt had once considered the height of fashion. The whole neighborhood was old, stuck in the past, just like Kurt.

They stopped to get a couple of sandwiches, and then they went to the park.

It was a small park, wedged in a vacant space between a few buildings. Several times over the years builders had lobbied to try to tear it down, but the neighborhood always won and declared it public space. There was a small playground and about a mile of trails winding through trees and scenery and even a little duck pond.

Blaine had loved it. He loved the kids and the swings and the ducks and walking along the path in the spring and picking flowers to bring home.

They walked for a while in silence, Melissa holding Kurt’s arm as he shuffled along. Then they came upon the playground, which was empty at the moment. Kurt took his seat on the bench beside the swing set, and Melissa sat in the swings. It creaked with age, but seemed sturdy enough. It had been replaced, several times over Kurt knew. But the fact that it was still there warmed his heart.

“Blaine loved this place so much,” said Kurt. He looked around slowly, thoughtfully, soaking it all in. It was beautiful.

“Did you guys come here a lot?” asked Melissa, swinging back and forth gently. She was a tiny thing, she swung like a child.

“All the time. Once a week, or more. When we lived here. Blaine loved it. Sometimes it was his only chance to get out all week. We’d walk the path, feed the ducks, then I’d read here while he played with the kids. The kids loved him. He was such a big kid himself. They’d play tag or they’d hide and make him have to find them.” Kurt smiled fondly at the memories, and with a light sigh he pointed to his left. Over there, I remember, it was probably the fourth of July one month, we came out to watch the fireworks and ended up behind that bush. If Santana hadn’t found us, we could’ve gotten in big trouble that night. But god. We were young and adventurous.”

Melissa was blushing again, and they both laughed it off.

“You can’t blame a man for remembering what he’s too old to have now,” said Kurt unashamedly. In truth it wasn’t even that he couldn’t. He hadn’t so much as desired to touch himself in all the years he’d been without Blaine. Without him sex had seemed pointless.

“No, of course not,” said Melissa, laughing.

“Well,” said Kurt. He paused, took in a deep breath of the fresh air, and for once his lungs didn’t burn. “Well. I’ve had about as much as I can handle for one day. What do you say we head back?”

Melissa jumped off the swing at the highest point and landed perfectly on her feet, and as Kurt watched, all he saw was Blaine, sixty years past, doing the very same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!


	6. Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day we will meet again and all this emptiness will end, and I will kiss you...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look! I wrote a thing! I am so sorry for the delay, but after a few persistent messages and some bugging of a friend, I've found it in me to update this fic and hopefully complete it in a timely manner. The song in this chapter is a really random, obscure Barry Manilow song my itunes played when I hit shuffle, and the lyrics shattered me. Please enjoy.

When Melissa came to visit the next time, Kurt was actually on his feet. He was in the kitchen, staring at the pile of ingredients he had collected, too exhausted to actually do with them what he had intended to. The doorbell rang and Kurt feebly called out a “come in”, and before the words were even out, the girl was bounding into the apartment, instantly filling the air with more life than Kurt even had left.

 “Hi Kurt,” said Melissa, finding him in the kitchen. She had finally given up that “Mr. Anderson-Hummel” nonsense, which was good because Kurt sometimes even his own name reminded him so much of Blaine that it was painful. 

 “I’m trying to make lasagna,” Kurt said, waving his hand over all the ingredients. He felt a rush to his head and he swayed on his feet. A hand stuck out to grab on to a counter. Steady now. Good.

 “Lasagna? Like, homemade lasagna?” Melissa looked at him with both eyebrows raised. There was a pregnant pause while Kurt tried to think of a way to respond that didn’t point out how stupid she sounded.

 “Yes, homemade lasagna. It was Blaine’s favorite,” said Kurt. He paused then, almost surprised the ease with which Blaine’s name spilled from his lips. After so many years of not speaking it, telling Melissa the stories had been a strain. It seemed as though it got easier with time, and Kurt pondered for a brief moment whether he might actually be healing from the hurt of Blaine’s death.

 A coughing fit hit his chest hard, sending him into a fit of wracking coughs that shook his body from head to toe. He was too frail to handle it, his hands losing their grip on the counter and limbs shaking almost violently as he coughed. Small hands gripped his waist, holding him up as best they could. The scared voice of Melissa questioning him was left unheard.

 The next thing he knew, he woke up lying on the couch in the living room, staring up at the ceiling. Sitting up was difficult, his back stiff and his chest aching. Melissa was there, a hand on his back helping him up. She was concerned, it was written on her face. Kurt had seen that look before, in the mirror, in his daughter's eyes, on his doctor’s face.

 He gave a feeble cough and almost doubled over. Melissa gasped softly and shifted to sit beside him.

“Do I need to call someone? The hospital? Your daughter?” she asked, rubbing his back gently. He wanted so badly to shrug her off and tell her to leave. He wanted to tell her to go and never come back and stop bringing back these stupid memories that keeping making things worse.

But what came out of his mouth was considerably nicer than the things he said internally.

“No, I’m fine. Help me up. I want to make Blaine’s lasagna.”

Melissa looked at him like he shouldn’t have been on his feet and he probably shouldn’t have been, but he wanted to. He sat up and she handed him his cane. He could have used a wheelchair today, he was so weak. He vowed if he ever needed one of those he would throw himself out a damn window, he didn't want to be that old and helpless. That thought made him frown.

The girl helped him to the kitchen and found him a chair. He directed her on what to do, telling her each step to make it just right. When she did something even slightly wrong, there was no hesitation yelling at her. It had to be perfect. It _had_ to.

Forty-five minutes later, she was pulling out a stunning tray of lasagna from the oven. She had used an oven twice in her life, thanks to modern appliances Kurt refused to even look at let alone try. It was a good lesson for her.

After it was cooled, she made them both a plate and they sat at the table. He didn’t even pick up his fork, waiting for her to try a bite. She did, chewing slowly as she played with the flavors on her tongue. She swallowed, and she looked up at him with bright eyes, her lips drawn into a smile.

“I should have known it would be this good. As far as favorites go, Blaine was spot on. This is delicious,” said Melissa. She at the rest before Kurt even had two bites of his own. He didn’t each much anymore, he didn’t need to. But the smell of it was enough to make him full with pleasant memories.

_“Blaine! What are you doing?” Kurt turned around, spatula in hand, to find Blaine standing barefoot on the kitchen table of the loft clad in nothing but a pair of shorts. It was stupidly hot that summer, the heat of the city getting to all of them. The loft had no air conditioning and Blaine had begged Kurt to make him lasagna for dinner. There had been a strict rule of no oven use for a month now, but Blaine had to have his lasagna._

_“Standing on, on the table,” Blaine said matter-of-factly._

_“Yes I see that. But why?” Kurt put his spatula holding hand on his hip and looked up at Blaine disapprovingly. Kurt himself was dressed in nothing but boxer briefs and an apron that sported a cartoon man with a lascivious grin holding a sausage in his hand and the words “Fuck the Cook” on it. Where on God’s good Earth Santana Lopez had found_ that _one, Kurt did not even want to know. But Blaine thought it was absolutely hysterical so Kurt wore it on occasion just to hear him laugh._

_“Because I, um, I like the view,” said Blaine as he moved from standing on the table to kneeling. Kurt rolled his eyes because Blaine looked entirely too cute for his own good._

_“View of what, might I ask?” Kurt raised an eyebrow._

_“Of, of your butt,” said Blaine, offering Kurt a smile that he could help but take two steps over to kiss._

_“Mmhmm, of course you were looking at my butt. You’re always looking at my butt. You’re a dirty boy.” Kurt turned away and gave said butt a little wiggle, just as the timer went off. “Alright my loyal butt admirer, get off the table because your stupidly hot dinner is served by your equally as hot but not-at-all stupid chef.”_

Kurt chuckled to himself and Melissa had to ask what he was laughing about exactly.

“Blaine,” he answered. “The Blaine in my head. The Blaine from years ago. The memories of him that swarm in my head, and the way that I was with him. The way I was willing to do things for him that no one else could ever get me to do for them. And the way he was always staring at my butt.”

Melissa snorted ungracefully with laughter and that made Kurt smile too.

“In all fairness,” Kurt added, “I was always staring at his butt too.”

That one made the girl roll her eyes. She was used to him now, letting the occasional comment about slip out. Young Blaine was hot, she once admitted to him. And since then she seemed to understand why he was so candid with her about those intimate moments that bored on sexual. She understood the attraction and the lack of borders between platonic and sexual and the physicality of it all. She knew he was being funny, but he knew that there was more to it than humor. There was always more to everything.

“Come back tomorrow,” he told her when she finished her lasagna. “I want to go somewhere.”

 …………………

They called a cab because he couldn’t walk down the block without breaking into a fit of coughs so violent he would fall over if Melissa wasn’t there to hold him up. His chest ached with every breath he took, but he refused to let it stop him from what he wanted to do. He needed to do it, for himself. For Blaine. 

When they arrived at the theater, it only took the mention of his name for him to be allowed inside. His name was on the wall, after all. His and Blaine’s. They used to own it, but after Blaine died, Kurt no longer saw the point. He transferred ownership to the foundation with the request that Blaine’s name be left on the plaque. They left them both, and for the moment Kurt was happy.

Kurt shuffled out onto the stage while Melissa sat in the front row. The stage was empty, a little dusty, and dark save for one light shining on the stage that had been turned on just for their visit. It had been many years since he'd bothered to even think about coming here. There were simply too many memories. Too many memories of his past, when he could sing and dance and perform to hundreds, thousands of cheering fans. He could looked down into the front row and see those shining hazel eyes looking up at him like he was the best thing that had ever been on this earth.

But performing without Blaine to see it felt like a betrayal. He would have never even made it as a performer if he hadn't had Blaine all the while, there to motivate him and show him that he could. Blaine made him see that no matter how hard he had it, someone would always have it harder than him. It seemed terrible to think of Blaine that way, but it was what kept him going. If Blaine could put up with this miserable world, than so could he.

But without Blaine, he didn't have it in him anymore. He hadn't sung a note since Blaine died.

There he was, though. On that stage he had performed on so many times in his younger years. It was closed now for shows and used only as a museum for tourists who wanted to know what "theater of the old days" was like. The old days. That's all Kurt was now. Just an antique. Blaine would have had something to say to cheer the moment up, but Blaine wasn't there. He was just another part of Kurt's past, like so many of the shows Kurt had done on this very stage.

There was an old piano on the stage, one more for show than anything, but it was tuned if anyone actually wanted to give playing an "old fashioned" piano a try. Blaine was always the piano player, but Kurt had sat beside Blaine while he gave lessons to Alli that he knew more than enough. He sat down at the bench and reached into his pocket where he kept an old paper photograph of Blaine from what seems like a million years ago. He smoothed it out on the surface of the piano and looked at it for a moment.

With a sigh, his eyes drifted closed and he began to play softly at first. When he sang, his voice was shaky and rough from not being used, weak from his lack of breath, and filled with quivering emotion. But he sang what was in his heart, a song from a million years and a lifetime ago.

"When I wake up everyday  
I miss you  
And it never goes away  
I miss you  
People smile and while  
I talk and even laugh  
I'm not even half the man they knew  
Without you  
When I'm in our bed each night  
And I turn out the light  
Oh how I miss you

"Little things reminding me about you  
Who will I annoy again, if not you?  
In my silent room sometimes  
I'll close my eyes  
And I whisper sweet good byes  
You'll never hear  
Blaine my dear.....  
Fifty years, Kurt and Blaine  
Tell me how could this be true?  
Oh how I miss you

"Was I there  
when you needed me to be there?  
Could you see  
there wasn't one day  
When you weren't my best guy?  
Though we both drove each other crazy  
I love all the love you gave me  
And you were all that mattered  
In my world

"Everyday I love you more  
And miss you  
And I wish you knew  
That through the darkest night  
You are still the light  
That helps me find my way  
And I pray

"One day we will meet again  
And all this emptiness will end  
And I will kiss you  
'till that day  
Though we're apart  
I'll hold you close  
Here in my heart  
But god  
I miss you"

His voice broke at the end and a single tear pushed free, rolling down his cheek. His trembling hand reached up and picked up the photo, his thumb brushing over it gently. He brought it up to his lips and kissed it so softly, then carefully folded it and tucked it back into his pocket. Then he wiped the tear from his eye and composed himself. He stood up, and for the last time, exited stage left.

And the light turned off.

…………………….

He was too sick the next day, and the next. Whether it was his illness or misery of the loss he never got over, he couldn’t say. Blaine’s name, which had been easier to say three days before, was agony to think now. His heart hurt, like someone was draining out the last bits of life from it and slowly pulling apart the stitches that had held it together since the day Blaine died.

Finally, when Melissa came to visit him and he was well enough, he let her in. He was in the chair by the window again, and she pulled up a chair beside him. His hand rested on the arm of the chair, and her small one covered it. Two hours of silence passed, broken only by his occasional phlegm-filled coughs. Finally she spoke.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

His voice was small, quiet.

“I have cancer.”

“It’s treatable…” she began.

“No,” he shook his head and coughed. “It’s not. Not now. I’m dying. It’s beyond anything they can do for it.”

“But you must have known before…why didn’t you…?” She didn’t understand. Most cancers were so easily fixed these days. Not all, but most. And easily detectable. It was never bad enough that there wasn’t something they could do.

Kurt looked up at her with tired, sad eyes.

“You’ve asked why my daughter hardly speaks to me.”

Melissa stared back, trying to understand. It dawned on her then. The truth of it. It wasn’t that anyone was too busy for the old man in front of her, or that he had pushed them away with his bitterness.

“I refused treatment. Allison has never forgiven me. She doesn’t understand why I won’t fight, but damn it, I’m an old man and I’ve lived long enough without my Blaine and I’m ready. I just wish it wasn’t so damn slow.” Kurt raised his voice only to be rewarded with another fit of coughing.

Melissa was there, she didn’t leave, storm out, get mad. She gripped his hand as tight as she dared and soothed him gently until his fit of coughs subsided.

She tried really very hard not to cry, but if a few tears escaped her eyes, she could hardly be blamed.


	7. Part Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There will never be another person on this planet as good as he was...

Kurt had never planned on going. It was all the girl’s fault. She wouldn’t stop bugging him about it and before long, he had to say yes just to get her to shut up. He wanted so badly to just forget it all and take the damn suit off and sit back in his chair and think about how close he was to seeing Blaine again after all this time. But he couldn’t. He had to go. This was his last chance to do this one thing and he knew it would make Blaine proud.

He stood in front of a mirror wearing a classic, elegant black suit and didn’t look nearly as good on him as it had in his youth. He hated how he looked now. Old, stooped over, thinning gray hair. His legs were thing as twigs and barely able to hold him up, his arms were old and wrinkled and his face didn’t look half as youthful as he had hoped it would when he reached this age. His eyes were tired, faded to a lifeless gray just like the rest of him.

He remembered the day, all those years ago, when he had been getting dressed in much the same way, and Blaine was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. Unbeknownst to both of them, he was dying right there in in their bedroom. What had been a cheerful, exciting morning quickly turned into the worst day of Kurt’s long life. In just a matter of hours Kurt went from happily married to his husband of so many years they both lost count, to alone and empty and lost.

Since that day, Kurt never attended another charity benefit ever again. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. The pain was too much.

Except now…now he was dying. And the foundation had been the thing in Blaine’s life that he had been most proud of. The last time he’d been to a doctor they had given him a number in weeks instead of months, and he knew that this would be the very last chance to honor what Blaine had worked so hard to achieve.

Kurt sighed and gripped his cane, shuffling over to the bed. He sat on his side of the bed and looked at a framed picture of Blaine on the nightstand. It had been a recent addition to the room. He found it in the drawer and decided that it deserved to be seen once more. Brushing his finger over the picture, Kurt imagined Blaine in the room with him, getting dressed for yet another benefit he had worked so hard to set up.

Now the benefits were run by people Kurt didn’t even know. The whole thing was run by people Santana hired over the years and Kurt didn’t know anyone and it suddenly seemed like such a cruel insult to Blaine. It hadn’t always been like this. After Blaine had died, Kurt did everything in his power to make sure the foundation continued to be a success. He managed everything but actually attending the benefits for nine years.

 But he’d lost his way. He grew exhausted by it all and let Santana, Veronica, and Alli take it over completely. He separated himself from the foundation, except for letting them use his name whenever they needed to.

At least, until now.

He called Veronica two days before and requested two tickets to the event, and she had been so shocked by his interest in attending that she nearly cried. Kurt made her promise to keep it a secret, and she did. She didn’t even ask who his second ticket was for.

Looking at the picture of Blaine, Kurt knew that he would make his husband proud, finding the courage to attend the event even after all the history. It was almost enough to make him smile.

“I’m doing this for you,” Kurt told the picture. “All for you. I still love you so much. I spend every day trying to hold on to you, not let you slip from my memory. But it’s getting harder, Blaine. It’s getting so much harder. I feel like I’m running out of fuel. And worse…I miss you. Every day I miss you more and more.”

Kurt shook his head. No. He would not cry before, during, or after this event. He would _not_.

He brought two trembling fingers to his lips, kissing them, then pressed them against the photo.

“I’ll be with you soon,” he promised softly.

A knock on the door startled him a little, followed by it opening and closing. The girl knew by now when to just let herself in. She called out to him and he didn’t bother answering. He struggled to his feet and flipped off the lights, then shuffled out of the room and down the hall.

He smiled when he saw her. She was just a little slip of a thing in a beautiful green dress, brown curls cascading over her shoulders and face all dolled up with just enough makeup to look classy. She looked older than her age, which he was sure she was proud of.

The benefit was still somewhat of an extravagant affair, with New York’s richest elites and celebrities gathered to spend entirely too much money but all for a good cause. Melissa had confessed she didn’t even know what to do around people who had that much money. Kurt told her that her job was just to make sure he didn’t fall over and take notes about the foundation for her report.

Still, the invitation to accompany him had gotten her so excited she had nearly crushed him in her hug.

He smiled for her and drew her into a less crushing embrace when he saw her.

“You look beautiful,” he told her.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile.

There wasn’t time to linger. A call from downstairs alerted them that a limo had arrived to take them to their destination. Melissa grew excited by that, grinning even wider as she took his arm and escorted him to the elevator. Years ago, it had been Kurt escorting Blaine. He longed for that time.

When they reached the limo and they were settled in, Kurt reached into his pocket and pulled out a flash drive. He held it up, showing it to her.

“I need you to take this and do something for me,” he told her.

“Of course,” she said instantly.

“It’s very special. Do not lose it. There’s not another copy of that video anywhere. I want you to go and make those fanatical schedulers squeeze me in and tell them I want to show that video. Can you do that? Promise me you’ll do it.” Kurt looked at her, his eyes drilling into her, demanding it, requesting it, begging it.

“Yes. I’ll do anything,” Melissa nodded. She clutched the drive tight in her small hand and looked at him, big eyes glistening.

He patted her hand and smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

When they arrived, there was a line of limos dropping off esteemed guests. When theirs pulled up, the door opened and Melissa was offered a hand to get out. She turned around to help him out, and the crowd at the door seemed to grow silent the moment his cane touched the concrete and he pushed himself out of the car.

Brushing off his jacket and stepping away from the car, Kurt looked up at all the people dressed in gowns and tuxedos and jewels. It wasn’t long before his eyes landed on a familiar face. His heart jolted in his chest as Allison came over to him, her big hazel eyes looking so much like Blaine’s and nearly filled with tears as she stepped up and hugged him.

“Papa, oh my _god_ I didn’t know you were coming. No one told me, why didn’t you tell me?” She pulled back, her hands on his shoulders.

“I wanted to surprise you,” said Kurt, taking one of her hands in his. Sometimes, in his weak moments, he longed for this because it was as close to touching Blaine as he’d come in many years.

“And you did. I can’t believe you’re here. Everyone is going to be so happy to see you,” Alli said to him.

Kurt offered her as much of a smile as he could muster and introduced Melissa to her. She had met her before, only not in any capacity to become acquaintances. On the way in, Kurt hugged at least a dozen people he hadn’t seen in years, but eventually they let him go in and sit.

“This explains why Veronica had us saving a seat for a guest of honor. I should have known,” said Alli as she led him to his seat at the front of the room. The voices of over one hundred people created a buzzing din that set Kurt on edge a little. He wasn’t used to so much noise anymore.

“Well look who it is.” A chair beside Kurt pulled out and a man slowly slid into it, even slower than Kurt sat into his chair. Kurt raised both eyebrows to find Blaine’s brother sitting beside him, holding out a hand. Kurt took it, shaking it in what could have been a tight grip in his youth.

“You’re still around?” Kurt asked, laughing softly until it made him cough for nearly half a minute.

Blaine’s older brother was in his mid-nineties and looked younger than Kurt, for which he hated him only a little bit. Cooper had always been just like his father, while Blaine had taken after their mother. Cooper lived to be well into his nineties, like Jack had, while Blaine only lasted to his sixties, like Viv had. Kurt wondered for a moment in what universe that was fair, but then he let the thought pass.

“Of course I am. Someone’s got to make sure you stay out of trouble. Who’s this lovely young lady you’ve got here?” Cooper instantly leaned over to give Melissa what used to be his I’m-a-handsome-actor-love-me grin.

“This is Melissa. She’s a fan.” Kurt looked to the girl. “Ignore him. He’s just a dirty old man.”

Melissa laughed, and Kurt turned to her and leaned over to whisper in her ear, away from Cooper. “Remember what I told you to do? Now would be good.”

She nodded and stood, showing that she still clutched the drive in her hand, and went off to find whoever was running the event.

“This might very well be my last time coming,” Kurt turned back to Cooper. “My last chance, anyway. I wanted to come. For Blaine.”

Cooper’s brow furrowed and he looked at Kurt, his eyes demanding an explanation.

“I’ve got cancer. And I refused treatment. I promised Blaine I wouldn’t take my life to be with him, but he never said I couldn’t let myself die of something natural. I’ve had this cancer for two years now, and it’s spread pretty bad. My body just won’t let go, though. But it’s only a matter of time, they say. Soon. I’ll be with him soon.” Kurt spoke like it was a normal thing, and there was worry in the way Cooper’s lips drew into a straight line.

“Kurt…”

“Don’t,” Kurt held a hand up. “In no universe do I want to live to be as old as you. I don’t even want to live until tomorrow if it means waking up without him. I miss him too much. He gave me enough of himself to last this long, but I can’t keep doing it.”

Cooper processed what he said, but didn’t have time to respond. Allison stepped up on the stage at the front of the room with her microphone in hand to begin the evening.

Dinner was served as various entertainers performed for them. Melissa came back after the appetizers were served, telling him she was sure they would fit him in.

There was a children’s choir, a testimonial of how the foundation had saved an ex-football player whose career had ended from a severe concussion, and a poetry reading from a young woman who survived and accident too similar to Blaine’s. By the time the main course in the dinner had been served, Allison was back on the stage, announcing that their guest of honor had something to say.

It took nearly five minutes for Kurt to get to the stage. The applause upon hearing that it was him lasted even longer. When he got to the stage and took the microphone into a shaking hand, he almost immediately broke into a coughing fit.

The whole room went silent.

Kurt coughed softly again and finally found the breath to speak, looking out at them all.

“Most of you know me. I’m Blaine’s husband. The Blaine who started all of this. I haven’t been around for a while, but I’m not going to be around much longer. I wanted to share something with you all before the memory dies with me.” He paused, coughed, took a breath. “Blaine was many things. A husband, a friend, a father, a man driven to overcome his setbacks. To show that he was just as strong and capable as everyone else. We all loved him dearly for his courage. But something he never wanted to showcase was how talented of a musician he was. Everyone knows he played the piano and sang a little, but there were some things he only showed me. Like how big a part of his heart wanted so badly to share his gift. He would let me record him sometimes, but when I asked if he wanted to try to record some professionally, he always refused. But today, in Blaine’s honor, I wanted to share this with you all. To show you this piece of Blaine I’ve been holding on to for so long. Now whoever is running this computer thing, play that video.”

It took a few moments before the screen on the stage flickered on, and a video of Blaine at a piano began to play. He was middle aged, nearly forty. It was after he’d regained his ability to sing, he would sing the songs he’d been playing at his piano for so many years.

He was watching Kurt behind the camera, a thoughtful little smile on his face. He shook his head a little and laugh before he spoke. “You aren’t, not supposed to record it, silly. I just want to, to sing for you.”

Kurt behind the camera laughed softly and replied, “I know you do, but maybe I want to have it to remember how beautiful you sing.”

Blaine almost blushed, then he turned to his piano and began to play.

_It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart_  
Without saying a word you can light up the dark  
Try as I may I could never explain  
What I hear when you don't say a thing

_The smile on your face lets me know that you need me_  
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me  
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall  
You say it best when you say nothing at all

_All day long I can hear people talking out loud_  
But when you hold me near you drown out the crowd  
Old Mr. Webster could never define  
What's being said between your heart and mine

_The smile on your face lets me know that you need me_  
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me  
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall  
You say it best when you say nothing at all

_The smile on your face lets me know that you need me_  
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me  
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall  
You say it best when you say nothing at all

The song ended and there was a beat of silence, and then the video cut to black.

The whole room was silent, until Kurt broke it with a cough. He was trying so hard to fight both tears and the coughing at the same time. Finally he gathered a bit more strength to speak.

“He had something special. He was something special. I just thought I would share it with everyone. This whole charity…he envisioned it himself. He told me what he wanted and I gave him everything he needed to make it happen. But this…it was all him. I know you’re all here expected to give money to some charity to get tax deductions and have something good under your name, but I don’t want anyone to think of it like that. I want to think of it as honoring the memory of that man, who left this world too soon and left all of this as a legacy.”

More silence followed, and Kurt could see a few tears in a few peoples’ eyes and knew they were getting his message.

“Blaine is the reason we’re here. Blaine is the reason that football guy is alive and that little girl can read the poetry. Blaine is the reason that girl, Melissa, who came with me, has a normal life with a family who loves her. He did all of this. He was just so much more than my husband, Alli’s father, Santana’s friend. He was a good, courageous person with a heart of gold. There will never be another person on this planet as good as he was, and I wish he was here right now to tell you all how very thankful he would be that you were here.”

Kurt broke off into a fit of coughs and knew he couldn’t speak much more on that. It wasn’t until he was nearly off the stage that they clapped for him. When he was back at his seat, he caught his daughter before she went back to introduce the next speaker. He took her hand and squeezed it.

“Next year,” he said, “you have them honor him. You make this about his memory and what he wanted. I don’t see him anywhere here and it’s not right. You swear to me. Next year, this is for him.”

Alli’s golden eyes sparkled with unshed tears and she gave him a single nod. What was unspoken was that he wouldn’t be there to make it happen, so it was up to him. She leaned down and pressed her lips to his forehead.

“I promise,” she whispered. She squeezed his hand back and walked back to the stage.

Kurt looked over at Melissa, who looked like she too was trying very hard not to cry.

“That song…” she said. “The way he sang to you. He loved you so much.”

Kurt’s eyes were filled with sadness as he nodded. His lips parted as though he was about to respond, but he couldn’t find the words to agree. He knew it, in his brain, but it had been so long now that his heart had begun to feel empty. He had been too long without Blaine’s love, he couldn’t even remember what it was like anymore.


	8. Part Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But all stories have an ending, and ours is coming very soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for any spelling mistakes. I'm sick and filled with cold medicine and I wrote too much in too short of time, and I just wanted to get it posted. Thanks for your patience and enjoy!

“Alright class, don’t forget we’re starting presentations on Monday. That means some of you have a lot of work to do over the weekend,” Ms. Carmen told her class.

Melissa stood up from her desk and pushed her tablet into her bag before slinging it over her shoulder. She was excited, because it was nearly time to present all the information she’d gathered about her hero. She couldn’t wait to share with her classmates about all she’d done in her time with Kurt. Not only had she learned a lot, she made a lot of new friends too.

On her way out, Ms. Carmen called her over to the desk. She walked over with a little smile and held the strap of her bag in two hands on her left side. Ms. Carmen looked up at her with curious eyes.

“How has your research been going, Mel?” asked Ms. Carmen.

“It’s been going really well,” she replied, grinning just at the thought of talking about her incredible experiences. She had one more visit with Kurt before the presentation, but she didn’t intend on stopping to visit him. He didn’t have much time left, and she wanted to keep him company until the end.

“I saw you in the news last week. You went to that charity benefit. You were quite the celebrity.” Ms. Carmen looked at her proudly.

“Yes, Mr. Anderson-Hummel invited me to go with him because the foundation was such an integral part of Blaine’s life. He wanted me to know more about it. It was an amazing experience. I’ll never forget it.” Melissa smiled, not wanting to divulge too many details, she wanted to save more of it for presentation day.

Her teacher bid her a good weekend and Melissa waved goodbye. She made the usual trip from school down the block, down to the subway, counted three stops, climbed back up the stairs, one block, and in the middle of Times Square. She looked up to glance at a new ad on one of the billboards, then trudged on through the people, took a right, and two blocks down came upon the building in which Kurt Anderson-Hummel resided in.

A smile for the doorman, up the elevator, and through the unlocked door into the apartment that looked like a time capsule to the 2040’s. A quick glance found the lone inhabitant of the apartment sitting in his usual chair staring out the window at the street Melissa had just come from.

She nearly danced over to him, set her bag down, and came up to his side, leaning over to kiss his cheek as a hello. There was a smile on his face at the action and he almost went to look up at her before he was overcome by a fit of coughs.

Calmly, she went to the kitchen and got him a glass of water while he coughed in the other room. She came back out, pulled up a chair beside him, and offered the water. When he was done coughing he sipped. She took it back, set it down, and waited for him to get more comfortable.

He looked tired, too tired to talk. He sipped the water and nearly coughed it back up after a few seconds. She was there, patting his back gently and taking the glass from his shaking hands. The patting only made him cough worse, and she felt terrible. It was obvious to her that he didn’t have much longer left.

Kurt looked up at her with tired, faded blue eyes. Then they slid closed. For a moment she panicked that he had died right there in front of her, but she listened to his breathing and he began to snore softly. She had a few final questions for him, but none of them were imperative to the completion of her paper. Just things she wanted to know. But for the most part, she had the whole of their love story. It was just the end she was missing.

She let Kurt nap, leaving the water near him, and she began to quietly snoop around the apartment. She had spent enough time there to notice a few boxes with curious labels on them and old photo albums from decades ago. She slipped into the room that had once been the office/music room when Blaine had lived. Shuffling things around, she came across a box labeled “memories” in sloppy writing from a shaky hand. Blaine had written the word. She traced her finger over it, as though it was some connection to this man she had learned so much about but never met.

Opening the box, she found it stuffed full of old albums. They were dusty and untouched for so many years. She pulled what looked to be the newest one out and opened it. They were scrapbooks. There were eight in total. And they all looked to be made by Blaine. She opened it up and flipped through the pages. This book was full of pictures of Kurt and teenage Allison. There were very few pictures where Blaine was included, like Blaine was the one taking the pictures.

The oldest of the books contained only pictures of Kurt. He was significantly younger than almost any of the pictures Melissa had seen of him. Most of them he looked about her age. When she flipped through pages containing faded photographs of what looked like an old school building, she realized these were pictures from when they were in school together. A lot of the pictures were of Kurt singing in some king of music room, or him just sitting around smiling shyly for the camera. There were ancient looking paper ticket stubs from things called “regionals” and “nationals”.

At the very end of the book was a page of pictures of Kurt and Blaine together, and she was astonished by how young and adorable they were back then. Blaine’s hair was bushy and out of control and he had a cute smile on his smooth cheeks and Kurt looked like a baby in half of them. To think that the old man napping in the other room was once this vibrant young boy who went to school and was filled with young love…

It made Melissa’s heart ache with how romantic it was. She snapped a photo of a couple of the pages with her tablet then stuck the book back in the box. She moved on to another box that was much less old and dusty. It was labeled in a neater hand simple as “Blaine”. Curious, she opened it up and found it filled full of files and papers. She rifled through a few, finding mostly old notes from doctor visits, papers regarding the funeral of someone named Vivienne, and a bunch of hand written sheet music. She wanted to pry further but it almost felt like an invasion into the private everyday life of Blaine.

She closed the box and moved on. An unlabeled box caught her attention, and she opened it up. It was full of clothes. Really really nice clothes, actually. There were suits and button down shirts and slacks and shiny black shoes. They were old but they were handsome. They must have been Blaine’s, she guess when she held up a pair of pants and decided they were entirely the wrong size for Kurt. She pulled up a nice sport coat and brushed her fingers over the polished buttons. The clothes didn’t even smell musty and old, like clothes usually did after they’d been in boxes so long. Somehow they still smelled like fresh cologne. Like Blaine.

She gasped softly and dropped the coat back into the box. Shutting it as quickly as she could, she grabbed her tablet and left the room. As soon as she shut the door behind her she could hear the sounds of Kurt coughing in the living room. Hurrying over there she found the older man had woken himself up and seemed to be quite alert by now. She offered him water again and pulled a chair up beside him.

“You dozed off so I used the bathroom,” she told him, smiling kindly at him as he tried to adjust himself in his chair.

“Right. Where was I?” said Kurt gruffly.

“You, um. You actually hadn’t started yet. But that’s ok. I really only have one more question left. My presentation is soon, and my paper is mostly done. The last question I have is really just for me,” Melissa smiled and placed her hand over Kurt’s.

He sighed, clearly tired from his daily battle with the illness inside him

“Alright, what do you got for me?” he asked softly.

“You’ve told me almost everything about your life with Blaine. The love story that was your life. I just…wondered if you can tell me how it ends?”

Kurt was silent for a few moments, and his chest shuddered when he let out another cough. He looked like the very thought of talking about _that_ pained him. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, even his jaw shaking as he tried to pull up the courage to speak.

“You want to know how it ends,” Kurt said, barely a whisper. The apartment was silent and the girl was on the edge of her seat, leaning toward him. “Fifteen years ago, Blaine and I were getting ready to go to his benefit. He wasn’t feeling well, I could tell. I should have taken him to the doctor then, but I just gave him his pills and went to call a cab. I was standing right here by the window, on the phone when I heard him fall. He called out to me, using the last of his strength to tell me something was wrong. I got to him and he had collapsed. At the hospital, he had a stroke, and he was dying. They let us take him home and we got him settled into bed, and he was in so much pain. He was fighting so hard, because that’s what he always did. And I took his hand and I told him…I said…I said, ‘Blaine. You don’t have to fight for me anymore. I know how much pain you’re in so it’s ok if you let go’.”

Kurt paused, his whole body shaking now as Melissa watched tears forming in his eyes. The tears seemed to brighten the blue in them, bringing them back to life in a way.

“He said goodbye to everyone, and then I laid beside him and I held him. And fuck it all. I fell asleep on him. I was so stressed and tired and sad I fell asleep and hoped it was all some bad fucking nightmare. And then…then…when I woke up. I was fucking lying in bed with my dead husband and that was the worst moment of my life.” Kurt couldn’t hold it in then. He couldn’t stop the choking cough-sobs that wracked his body. Tears slid down his face, like rivers in the creases of his aged face.

The sobs turned into just coughs, and he held an old handkerchief to his mouth as he coughed and coughed and coughed, until he spit up a little blood onto the cloth. Melissa’s eyes grew wide, but Kurt just wiped his lips, then found a dry spot and wiped his eyes, and set the soiled cloth aside while a trembling hand lifted his glass of water to his lips once more.

“But that’s not the end,” Kurt whispered hoarsely. “No…no that’s not even close to the end. You see…Blaine filled me to the brim. Filled me with love and happiness. He filled every crack, crevasse, and hole in my body and soul. He hugged me and kissed me and held me each and every day, even when I didn’t think I wanted those things. He added just enough extra to keep me going. He didn’t want me to be one of those people who died the day after their spouse. He wanted me to live a long life, because he knew he wouldn’t. So every day, the fuel that’s kept me going isn’t the lust for life, it’s the love that Blaine filled in my heart. All these years, Blaine’s body has been dead, but he’s been alive. He has lived, inside of me, inside his child and his grandchildren and the people like you and your brother who are alive because of him. The love story is so much bigger than us now, it’s a message for the whole world.

Kurt grew more passionate and insistent as he neared the end, and finally, he backed off and he grew tired, and he relaxed in his chair a little more. He looked out the window. The very window Blaine had loved all those years ago.

“But all stories have an ending, and ours is coming very soon. The love he gave me has run its course, and I’m out of strength. In my dreams, I’ve spoken to him. He’s ready for me. When it’s time…he’ll be there. Arms open wide, smiling that smile of his. I’m ready for him too.”

Another tear slipped from Kurt’s eyes, and he closed them. Melissa didn’t say a word. She listened to his breathing until it evened out and she knew he had fallen asleep. She pulled out her tablet and opened her essay, typing a few things on to the end. Clicking save and send, she heard a beep from the other room and went to fetch the old tablet that had been Blaine’s. Bringing up the essay, she left it open on the table next to Kurt’s glass of water.

Then she kissed the top of his white hair covered head and left him alone to sleep.

 

………………………….

 

_Headway:_

_The Blaine Anderson Story_

_By Melissa E. Barnes_

_Fourteen years ago, a boy was running after his cat who had slipped out the apartment door. He ran right into traffic and was struck by a car. The driver was driving twice the speed limit and had five too many drinks. The boy was comatose for four month and his parents were told if he ever work up, he would never be normal. Ten years later, the boy stood between two beds in the hospital holding the crying little sister who he now had custody of, and he was told his parents would never wake up. That crying little girl was me, and that boy my brother._

_My brother has raised me the last four years, and without him who knows where I would be. He is the strongest person I know. That day he was hit by a car, when I was barely a year old, he had a traumatic brain injury that could have ruined his life if it weren’t for the work of one man. That one man started a charity many years ago to help victims of traumatic brain injuries. The day my brother was hurt, a woman from the charity called the hospital and covered every expense from the hospital stay to the years of therapy he required after. When my parents were killed four years ago, my brother was as fit and capable of taking care of me as though he were my parent._

_The man who started the charity who helped my family was named Blaine Anderson. Mr. Anderson’s life story began eighty years ago, when he was born in the town of Lima, Ohio in the year 1995. When he was eight years old, he was in a terrible car accident that left him with a severe brain injury that left him having to relearn almost everything. Before this, Mr. Anderson was a child prodigy, set to skip several years of school and enter a prestigious talent competition for his piano skills. But the accident took all that from him. At the time, the technology and therapies that were available to help healing were not as good as they are now, so his healing process was very slow. By the time he was a teenager, he could barely read, he had trouble communication, and he was physically less capable than his peers._

_Then he met Kurt Hummel. Many students of Old Broadway should be familiar with Kurt Hummel, who I had the great pleasure of interviewing for the purpose of this paper. Kurt was very eager to help Blaine when they were still in school, and soon they found they had fallen in love. The next few decades of their lives were filled with many trials, mistakes, and misunderstandings, but they were also filled with romance, passion, and undeniably pure love. Because of Blaine’s limitations, he was unable to hide his true feelings, and also unable to mask them with falsities that are so common among people, especially today. In Blaine, Kurt had found a man who was only ever capable of conveying the truth, and the truth of it was that Blaine loved him deeply and without restraint. Blaine was inspired by Kurt every day to get better and to make something happen and to be better. And forty-five years ago, that’s exactly what Blaine Anderson did._

_He started his foundation, which today is called the Blaine Anderson Foundation, to help people who had suffered injuries like his. His dream was to make sure that everyone got the best care possible and that no one had to suffer as he had throughout his life. No one would have to suffer intellectual and physical limitations, or be plagued by chronic headaches, or miss the chance for a real education. He put the rest of his life into the foundation that saved my brother, ensuring that for generations doctors would continue to make headway in researching brain injuries so that people could be healed sooner._

_Blaine Anderson died fifteen years ago, one year before my brother was hurt. He was killed by the last in a series of strokes over his lifetime that had been caused by the stress of his injury. He died at home in his bed, in the arms of his loving husband Kurt. He left behind a legacy of love and hope for every person and every family his work has touched. He lives on in every person who is alive because of him. He lives on in my brother, and he lives on in me._


	9. Part Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaine and I never held back from each other, and look at the life we lived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, unedited. Here is the conclusion to the final chapter story in the Headway series. I might still get around to some of those oneshots...enjoy!

Over the weekend, Melissa put the final touches on her visual presentation and called it good. She put entirely too much work into this project, more than any of her classmates, but she hadn’t expected to become such good friends with the man she set out to interview. So much of her life the past few weeks had come to revolve around her visits with Kurt.

She had enough notes on her tablet to write a novel about their life, and she wanted to do just that. She figured she would organize it out, figure out where she could get creative with it, then maybe a while after Kurt passed away she would ask Allison if it was okay if she wrote the story. Getting permission was important, she felt. Their story was personal, but it was also so inspiring. Maybe she could get a few of the missing details from other family members…

But she was getting way ahead of herself.

On Monday morning she only had one thing on her mind, getting to Kurt’s before school. It was presentation day, but she wanted to see if he had any suggestions for her before she had her moment in the spotlight. Part of her hoped he had read her paper, but she wasn’t sure that he would have felt good enough for that.

After getting on her school uniform, she went downstairs, caught the subway, took a bus, and walked two blocks to Kurt’s apartment. It was a busy morning in late May. Tourist season was beginning to start and the sidewalks were bustling with people looking up at the buildings towering above them. She dodged around all the people and into Kurt’s building.

She hummed to herself as she rode the elevator up, then almost skipped out and down the hall until she saw that Kurt’s door was open. Her first thought was that someone had broken in to the trusting old man’s apartment. She stepped inside closely and heard a few murmuring voices. There were boxes in the hallway and doors were open that Kurt never left open. She stepped into the living room, looking to the chair by the window and found it empty.

Voices could be heard in the kitchen, so she changed direction and stepped into the entry, coming upon a group she recognized well. Blaine’s older brother Cooper, Allison, Santana, and Blaine’s granddaughter Mackenzie. They all looked pale and sad and tired.

Melissa’s heart stopped in her chest.

“No…” She squeaked, making the others look up. She was already crying by the time Allison was there, offering her a hug. The embrace was short, and Allison pulled back. “He’s gone?”

Allison nodded. “He passed away Saturday night. He was unconscious in the chair and we had him taken to the hospital, and he was gone less than an hour later. It was peaceful. He’s happier now.”

She spoke the words but her voice was still shaky with sadness and her golden eyes were filled with grief. Melissa realized then how much she looked like Blaine, and for some reason that just tipped her over the edge.

She cried. It was a silent cry, drawn out and quiet with tears continually pouring from her eyes. She was no stranger to loss, but that never made it easier.

Her brother called the school, excusing her for the day. Allison let her stay in the apartment that morning. She sat in the chair she always sat in, beside the one that looked out the window. Tears never seemed to stop as she imagined Kurt was still there, complaining of some old person pain, or telling her about anything and everything that popped into his mind about his life with Blaine.

All she could think of were the questions she forgot to ask, the moments he never told her about, the gaps in the story she was missing. Most of all she wished for the chance to say goodbye. Kurt had only been in her life for a few weeks, but he had given her the gift of knowing about the wonderful life he shared with the incredible man that was his husband.

Now Kurt was gone and somehow the presentation she had prepared seemed inadequate. There was so much more to cover. What about all of Kurt’s achievements too? Had she failed to mention how much Kurt had done to keep the foundation going? Would Kurt’s memory continue on the way Blaine’s had in his work? In a hundred years would people know who either of these men were?

The questions never seemed to cease, until finally she was too tired of crying and wondering to sit there anymore.

Kurt Anderson-Hummel was gone. It was the one thing he’d wanted for as long as Melissa had been alive. What Allison had said was true, he was happy now. He could rest easy being with Blaine again.

The part she was most sad about, though, was that the story was over. Yes, there was the part about their memory living on in the good work the foundation did, but their love story had ended. They were high school sweethearts, lovers, husbands, a romance for the ages, better than any movie that could have been dreamed up. They were real, they were true, they gave her hope.

She cried again for the end of the story.

Then Allison said they were leaving for the day, and she handed Melissa a box.

“Papa left us a note, he wanted you to have these things. You were very special to him. You gave him a distraction when it became hardest in the end. You gave him someone to share his feelings with, when he felt he couldn’t trust us. I hope you come to his service later this week, and that you stay in touch with the foundation. Who knows, maybe when you’re older there will be a job waiting for you there.” Allison gave her a small smile. It was the kind of smile that someone gave after the loss of an elderly parent. The one where it’s a terrible loss but the relief of their suffering ending almost brings you happiness.

Melissa thanked her, took the box, and headed home.

…………………….

There were four things in the box.

The first was an envelope. Inside the envelope was a photo and a note. The photo was of Blaine hugging Kurt from behind, his chin hooked over his shoulder and a broad grin on his face. Kurt was smiling as well, looking happier than Melissa could have ever imagined.

She flipped it over and written on the back were two phrases:

_Blaine loves Kurt  
_ _Always_

_Kurt loves Blaine  
_ _Forever_

It made her smile as she looked at the note, handwritten on real paper. It was the messy scrawl of an old person whose hands shook and eyes didn’t see well anymore.

_Girl,_  
_Do me a favor. Fold this and tuck it in the inside pocket of my jacket before they bury me. It’s important.  
_ _Love, Kurt_

She read it four times and cried for twenty minutes straight, then put them both back in the envelope and set it aside to keep it safe until the funeral.

The next item in the box was a book. It was tattered and faded and dog-eared and even looked like it had been stepped on a few times. The front cover said _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_. She heard of this book, but she hadn’t read it. Inside the front cover was written “property of Blaine A.”

She wasn’t quite sure why Kurt had given it to her, but it was obviously something special, so she tucked it aside as well.

The fourth item was another envelope, this one more official looking and stamped with the seal of New York University. She opened it up and pulled out a letter, the kind that was only ever printed and mailed for official purposes by old fashioned people. She had never received a paper letter in her life like this, but it was addressed to her. She unfolded it and read it carefully.

_Dear Ms. Melissa Barnes,_

_It is my pleasure to offer you, upon your successful completion of your high school diploma, a place in New York University’s Class of 2082._

_I am also pleased to inform you that the costs of tuition, books, board, and living expenses have been covered for the duration of your time at our school, and that you should enjoy up to five years of undergraduate study and up to five years of graduate study at our school at no cost to you or your family._

_To accept, please simply reply by tablet, or have our mutual friends at the Blaine Anderson Foundation let me know._

_Sincerely,_

_Elliott Gilbert Jr._

_President of New York University_

Okay…so she might have screamed after that one. It took her two hours to come back to the box after telling sharing the letter with everyone in her family. That Kurt would give this to her meant more than words could explain. She wanted to thank him, but suddenly felt sad at the realization that she couldn’t, not physically.

When the excitement died down, she pulled the last item from the box. The old tablet that had been Blaine’s. And with it, all the photos, videos, and memories of Blaine’s life. Everything she would need to fill in the blanks for that book she wanted to write.

She turned the thing over in her hands a few times, then turned it on. The last file to be viewed was the one she had left open for Kurt to read. Her essay. She clicked on it and found that it had been edited. Scrolling to the bottom, she found Kurt had left her a note.

_Thank you for letting me read this. It was touching to read your story and Blaine’s all in one. I hope you might take what I’ve given you and expand on the story someday, so our “love for the ages” can continue to go on._

_You’re reading this, so that probably means that I’m dead now. Don’t be sad for me. I’m in a better place. I’m with Blaine now. I hope you’ve received all the gifts I managed for you, and the one little favor I asked in return. Let me give you one last story before I go._

_When I was seventeen, and things with Blaine were just beginning. I couldn’t believe my luck. Another gay teen in Ohio. He was the first dating prospect I’d ever met. I never realized we had been brought together to spend our lives together. I just wanted to be loved. But we stayed together and we fell deeper for each other. And then I started meeting other gay teens in Ohio. Some of them really damn cute, too. I went on coffee dates, I exchanged texts, and even kissed one. I never told Blaine, because I couldn’t do that to him. He was my best friend and my first love. No one ever even came close to how much he fulfilled me. I almost let him go twice. Once when we were kids, I broke up with him with no intention of taking him back, but I did. And the second time, I almost left him on our wedding day, but someone talked some sense into me. I guess the point of this story is that we all make stupid decisions, but we know when we have the right kind of love. So follow your heart, Melissa. Never, ever hold back. Blaine and I never held back from each other, and look at the life we lived._

……………………………….

_Two Days Earlier_

_In his dreams he had seen him, spoken to him often. When the light appeared in front of him, it was not stranger to him, but it was brighter this time. He felt darkness closing in behind him, compelling him to walk forward. His steps were slow at first, but as he grew closer he felt himself speed up. He looked down at himself, find his body growing younger and fitter and healthier the closer he got. There was a figure on the other side of the light, a familiar shadow._

_Kurt passed through some kind of barrier just as the light was so bright it was nearly unbearable. And then he could see again. And what he saw nearly made him cry tears of joy. There stood Blaine, in front of him, the same youthful age as he now appeared. He was smiling and holding open his arms and enveloping Kurt in a tight embrace._

_The hugged for so long that Kurt forgot what anything else ever felt like, as he just focused on the feeling of Blaine’s arms around him. He tucked his face in Blaine’s neck and he breathed in the scent of him. There was nothing faded, fake, photographed, or imagined about him. This was his Blaine._

_“I love you,” he whispered, just for Blaine to hear._

_Finally, Kurt was home._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I'll try to have the next part up soon.


End file.
